Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) (34 page)

“
When the Grinner attacked Aden at the school, there was a large mess left behind. And Liam – in case you didn’t know – you fried the schools electric circuit to get rid of the Demon Grinner. So it might take some time to repair the damages and the electric network.”

My mum raised her hand and then lowered it
again in a simple manner. On their own, the bags descended gently as we watched them in awe. Two stayed hovering in the middle of the room whilst one of them gradually floated towards us. We, the boys, stayed perfectly calm. But our instincts took over and we went rushing to it, quickly beginning to tear it open like the true wild savages we were.

“
BOYS!” Anne exclaimed, leaving Tantrus with his head thrown back, laughing at the hysterics we had so purposely created and then going back to sipping his bizarre blue beverage. We scoffed and retreated from the bag, leaving it torn in pieces revealing gifts in wrapping paper.

“
Barbarians,” Jojo said.

“Ruffians,” Tammy added.

“Animals,” Jade ended. So at least, I was right about the gifts.

“
So, Robbie first,” mum gestured.

Robbie
pushed us aside and took a gift that was cylindrical, long and had his name written in black marker on it. He was about to open it when he asked the adults: “may I?” Anne nodded, despite him already
being permitted. He didn’t seem to be able to shake off this formality and maturity he had, as if he was or had been an adult before. Robbie looked down at his gift and gently opened it. We ogled at him as he unwrapped the paper diligently. Beneath the surface of the wrapping paper lay a black solid with what looked like a sturdy surface and dry texture – as far as I could tell. He tore off the paper to see what it was, only to reveal a wrist wrap made out of black leather. It would approximately fit from midway of his forearm to his wrist, similar to the brown wrist wrap he had on his right forearm. Instantly, he knew where he had seen this object before: the ball, on the arms of Mychaela and Tarmo.

“
It looks really cool. Thank you, but what is it?”

“
That is what we call a Revelion. They’re very special and quite expensive to purchase, but I was able to get one in a shop from St Balowin’s in the Porto-Pyro capital. It amplifies your power, so much more than you can imagine. It’s also able to help you extend your power range without hurting yourself.” Tantrus took another sip of his beverage upon the end of his explanation.

“
But mind you, there is one thing about a Revelion you should know: once you put it on, you can never ever remove it. It binds itself with your power and blood, therefore making it a part of you,” added Anne. Robbie looked down at his Revelion and pondered on his decision carefully.

“
Well, I’m not going to think twice about putting it on,” he said cheerfully. He undid the laces of his brown leather wrist wrap on his right arm by waving his hand over its black crisscrossed laces and they came undone. “Jade, can you please?” he asked.

“
Sure.” She sat closer to him as he took off the armband and placed it on his left arm. Jade waved her hand over it and it laced itself. Robbie took a deep breath and then sighed. He opened the Revelion’s rough-textured, sturdy black exterior and saw that the inner layer was coated with a smooth, bendable coating of metal. He noticed its malleability as it stretched along with his arm every time he moved around. Robbie slid his finger gently over the interior and it emitted a gentle yet resonating sound. As soon as he heard it he retracted his finger from it.

“
Is this Tartalum?” he asked, looking at the adults.

“
Yes, but mind you it solidifies when it closes and seals to your skin,” replied mum. Robbie placed the Revelion underneath his arm and stretched it open. He purposely kept his arm hovered atop it, unsure of what would happen to him if he put it on. At long last, his arm descended and fell into it with a clang. As soon as his hand touched the inside coating of Tartalum, everything moved fast for Robbie. He took a sharp gasp; the armband laced itself with a loud whipping sound as the thin metal laces strapped and entwined themselves around each other and we heard a slight clangourous collision of metal. The force of the Revelion was so strong that it caused Robbie to uncontrollably stand up. His Celt patterns started to light into their white luminescent colour. His eyes shone
to bright gold and finally, his canines sharpened – similarly to how Jaden’s and mine were. His bottom canines grew pointier and his top ones sharpened. They weren’t really vampire-like though – when seen with the bottom teeth at least. They just looked neatly serrated. He honestly looked like some bizarre alien life-form, but still very humanoid.

“
Whoa, this is so cool. And
so
cold,” said Robbie.

“
Hey, my patterns, they’re expanding!” We could all see that his Celt marks were now creeping upwards towards his neck and then stopped.

“
Well, try something out,” instructed mum, even more excited than us.

“
Okay…umm –” Robbie looked around the room helplessly until he caught sight of a chair near the main entrance (which was now sealed to look like nothing less than a wall). Robbie opened his hand out, pointing it towards the chair whilst slowly starting to clench a fist. But whilst he was doing that, the chair was slowly crumbling. It was collapsing in on itself horridly and with every loud crack, it became whiter and whiter, seeming to lose its previous texture. Finally, as Robbie’s entire palm was locking his fingers, the chair had quickly become a scrunched-up piece of hovering, plain-white paper, which Robbie cast aside to look back at all of us in bewilderment. His bottom lip was dangling speechlessly and his eyes were left wide-open in inexpressible shock. He couldn’t find the words to describe his appreciation – his power had grown.

“
I…I –” Robbie was stammering helplessly as he looked at his new Revelion and extended Celtic patterns as if it wasn’t himself he was looking at. The gratitude he felt was indescribable to him. Tantrus instantly raised his hand to prevent Robbie the trouble of forcing himself to speak.

“You’re welcome, Robbie,” he said with a warm smile. Robbie nodded, with his eyes almost glistening in tears. But h
e just stood there like an awkward mannequin and we looked at him strangely.

“
Robbie,” Liam broke the silence, “won’t you sit down?”

“
Umm – I don’t really know how. My body’s just…all over the place.” Finally Liam dragged his brother to the floor as Robbie stroked his Revelion repeatedly.

“
Not bad, huh?” Tantrus said, followed by another sip.

Jade
peeked inside the bag and saw a pink box with her name on it. She swallowed hard and opened the lid, causing the thin, silk, pink ribbon to slide off of it. And there, underneath the clear white wrapping sheets, were two sharp objects, reflecting Jade’s image perfectly with their Tartalum nature.

Jade pulled out
a pair of long and thin, metal truncheon
s
with two curved prongs jutting out of the handle
which were
wrapped with a sturdy, easy-grip cloth. She looked at the long knives and read the engraved words on it: “Mallory.” She exhaled silently, remembering the last person to call her that name – our father. The weapons were reflective like mirrors and sent light bouncing onto the walls.

“
They’re called sais,” Tantrus prompted, in between his quiet sips of blue alcohol.

“
Your father left them for you,” mum then spoke. Jade looked up at her with sad eyes and smiled weakly as her eyes and Celt marks glowed purple.

Jojo put her hand inside
one of the bags and pulled out something that was, like Robbie’s, cylindrical. She began unwrapping the present sluggishly and to her complete surprise, she found a watch in Roman numerals that was encrusted with diamonds and emeralds. It was made to the length of a simple wristwatch but with a larger width and also bore a delicate interior layer of Tartalum – like most of the things coming out of this bag.

“
Take good care of that, Jo. It’s been in the family for centuries. It belonged to your great, great grandmother, Alexandra Wittle. It contains great power. Something that will prove much more useful to you,” Tantrus told his daughter seriously.

“
How powerful is it?” she greedily asked. Girls and their thirst for power; I mean really.

“
Let’s say you could march as much as you want through time and not squash any butterflies if you wanted to.”

“
But that’s –”

“
Impossible? Yes, exactly why you need to be careful with it,” Tantrus added, stirring his drink as he moved his wrists around in circular motions.

Tammy looked through
the bag, but in a way that said she already knew what she was going to have. She pulled out a wrapped box. It was a case that contained some sort of jewellery. When she opened it, her eyes became a glowing amethyst. She extracted a long, silver, Tartalum wheat-chain necklace that had small metallic charms attached to it: a lightning bolt, an eye, a hand, what
seemed
like a tree, a metal figurine that looked like two people whose backs were fused together, a long canine, a leaf and a dagger. All those little objects were minuscular. Tammy lifted her hair up to attach it around her neck. But there was something else for her. 

When she had put on the charm necklace, a bracelet made of pearls appeared on her right wrist. Knowing what they were
for, she ripped off a pearl, crushed it easily in her palm – reducing it to dust – and gently let the pastel powder glide to the floor like thin sand. Suddenly, the bracelet disappeared and dissolved into the air as white smoke filled the room from the pile of dust on the floor. We watched, enchanted, as the room soon changed into a holographic image of the solar system. We were surrounded by stars, nebulas and space gases. I looked underneath me, only to realise there was no longer carpet, but an eternal space of darkness bejewelled with diamond-like stars. Suddenly, emerging so gently, a series of loud whispers began to sound in the eternal plain. “What’s all that noise?” asked Jade.

“
It’s not noise – you have to listen,” said Tammy. She could hear many voices in unison but all were comprehensible to her. She then raised her palm over where the pile of dust had gracefully descended. In a flash, the projection around us attracted itself back into the dust on the floor. As soon as our living room reformed around us, the dust eddied and quickly re-solidified into the creamy, teal-hinted pearl it once was. Tammy’s bracelet rematerialized like white, chalky smoke. She picked up the pearl on the floor, brought it close to the bracelet and it suddenly reattached itself magnetically.

“
This is going to be extremely useful,” she said as she grinned at the pearls hung on her wrist. “Finally, my turn,” said Jaden.

“
Actually, we got you both the same things since your characters are beginning to say a lot about you two,” mum said. Jaden and I threw up our hands whist scoffing and grunted loudly in exasperation.

“
Every – single – time
!”

“Jaden, it’s like she’s
hinting
that she wanted one child.”

“The time with the birthday
presents.”

“And the clothes.”

“And the
school
! Wanting us to go to take
turns
to go to school.

“Well, sorry if we’re such disappointments
; we’ll just go and jump off a cliff –”
Jade instantly stretched down to smack us both on our heads to cease our dramatic squabbling. Jaden and I stood up sheepishly and stood side-by-side as our elastic bodies stretched to their full height.

“Here you go
, darlings,” said mum, then opening both hands to reveal small jewellery cases seeming to contain some precious objects of some sort. We cautiously approached her, anxious to discover what she was concealing in her hands.

We took the cases and opened them
casually, expecting nothing great or surprising. When I opened mine, the most unimpressive things stared me in the face. Well this was probably because I was becoming an ungrateful, bitter, arrogant jerk but what did I care? Lying on a silk bed were four jewels: one was diamond with a clear transparency, the second was sapphire with an intense electric blue, the third jewel was a ruby with a fierce sweet shade of red and the last one was an emerald with a lively and flamboyant green colour. But these jewels were so small I had to hold one on the absolute tip of my finger. If they fell, I’m pretty sure I would’ve been unable to find them unless I used a microscope. The tip of my finger touched the diamond and they all lit innocently. My heart suddenly raced and a sudden heavy burden was imposed on my head, as if I was carrying an anchor. But somehow, the pressure kept me standing as blood rapidly rushed to my head; my face darkening to a light rubicund. As if I had crushed ice with my teeth, my canines felt as if they were painfully trying to recede into my gums. Finally, the jewels dimmed and suddenly faded into nothingness. Upon that, my face lightened to marble white and the pressure was relieved.